NO GOSSIP, JUST STRAIGHT MC SHIT!

PERFORMANCE- FAN ATTAINMENT & RETENTION

When building your buzz online its real important to keep a solid supporting fan base. A lot of times when people use social networking sites and blogs to promote themselves in business and music they end up getting hooked on using programs that claim to generate “Hits” or “Fans” I don’t think these can be really effective cause if they do generate hits or fans that’s a one time thing. There’s no guarantee that these people will come back for more of what you have to offer. Fans and/or supporters want to feel like they’re a part of your movement, like their involvement greatly helps your progress. In the age of digital programming and accessibility you need to be a little more savvy when it comes to getting fans.

Through years of research I think I came up with a plan that could help getting and maintaining that fan base. With this system there should be no reason why you shouldn’t have a strong clan of die hard supporters for your music. The size of your fan base will be smaller than you may think at first but remember that it can and will grow.

I first came up with this in 2009 while working with two former artists of mine. They had been out of the spotlight for awhile and wanted to restart their whole career over. It came to me in two visions: The first was when I was reading an interview with Buckshot of Duck Down Records. After making waves in the 90s Duck Down started to lose steam entering the new millennium. When they started to come back it was during the time when record sales were weak, like in 05-06! Already earning their rep from previous Gold selling albums Buckshot and his business partner Dru-Ha settled in their position and remained content with just entertaining and catering to their die hard fans as opposed to trying to get new fans. In the interview Buckshot said “I’m good with selling only 300,000 units because no matter what, that still means 300,000 fans!”

The second vision came on one of my own social networking pages when I noticed in less than 2 years I had more than 2,000 friends. A lot I knew, but most I didn’t. At that time everybody wanted to be someone’s friend. After a while I started to use the page to promote my events. It worked for awhile. It got a lot of people out to the events but it was hard trying to translate them into fans. What I started to noticed was that a lot of our promotion was being wasted on people who were my friends “just cause” This took time away from the fans/friends that actually cared. I figured if I promoted to 2,000 people and only 60 responded why did I waste my time on the other 1,940? My best bet would’ve been to get rid of the 1,940 “friends” who probably never even looked at my page and just focus on the 60.

With those 60 I could cater to them, show them love back by giving them free merchandise, running contests for them and getting them to get their friends involved, ultimately getting more friends and Fans! This would increase my fan base by using my supporters to recruit for me and paying them with things I was gonna give away anyway.

So I figured that’s it! Next time when I start a new page or site I’ll search out people with the same interests in my surrounding area. Do this like every month or two. Next I’ll maintain constant contact with them and delete the ones that don’t respond and/or engage in conversation. Like in real life this will give me a core group of people I know will support. It can do nothing but grow from there!!